The Honeycomb, is a modern luxury residence within the community of Albany in Nassau, Bahamas.  This 175,000 square foot paradise-like building serves as a beacon for the community.  It is the tallest structure in Albany, standing at 114’ tall.   Not only does it include private individualized units, each having a summer kitchen and balcony pool, but also features a department store, jewelry store, and art gallery.  As an ongoing project, the Honeycomb is ever changing with its’ residents, causing the design to be truly iterative.   With each new resident, the units have the option of becoming personalized to fit the diverse needs of all who join the Albany community.  

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This document is a compilation of a year long attempt to analyze the existing building systems of the Honeycomb as well as provide suggestions and studies for potential redesign. 

 

LIGHTING

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Four important spaces within The Honeycomb, were analyzed and redesigned.  These four spaces include, a Large Workspace (Department Store), Special Purpose Space (Art Gallery), Circulation Space (Lobby), and Outdoor Space (Facade/Balcony).  It was important that within this analysis and redesign, the modern style and luxurious components of the Honeycomb remained a priority as well as the importance of comfortability for its residents.  Design criteria for each of the chosen spaces was recommended by the Illuminating Engineering Society Lighting Handbook Tenth Edition.  There is also recommendations from ASHRAE Standard 90.1 for lighting power density. 

 

MECHANICAL AND ACOUSTICAL

 

A portion of a space on the first floor was redesigned as a large work space in order to meet the project requirements.  With this redesign, it was important to understand the shift in use of the space and how that would impact the thermal comfort and air delivery in the space.  It was also important to understand the impacts of airborne sound from the redesigned space to the adjacent rooms.  A transmission loss study of the partition between the spaces was analyzed to ensure sound isolation.

 

ELECTRICAL

 

For the electrical depth, lighting on emergency power was implemented through central inverters. Voltage drop calculations were completed in order to see potential fault within the existing system and a short circuit analysis was completed in order to understand potential fault in selected equipment along a path.